New era of live sports production at Sky Sport HQ

Sky Deutschland began the 2017/18 Bundesliga season on 18 August 2017 with its new sports production and broadcasting centre “Sky Sport HQ”. Through its own production site, Sky now offers the entire world of sport from a single source, such as live sports broadcasts, Sky Sport News HD on free TV and the new sports portal skysport.de. Technological advisory in the development and planning phase, the design of the systems architecture, as well as systems integration, delivery and commissioning of the broadcast, production and IT infrastructure were carried out by Qvest Media, a worldwide leading systems architect and ICT integrator.

With the newly constructed overall technical infrastructure for Sky Deutschland’s new Sky Sport HQ, built on a total area of 4,600 sqm, Qvest Media again demonstrates its outstanding expertise and leading role in the realisation of innovative media-technology system landscapes. Sky’s new production and broadcasting centre, at the Unterföhring media site in Germany, has one of the most modern and largest broadcast IT infrastructures for live sports in Europe. It allows the broadcaster to produce all sports content in-house and to distribute it via a wide variety of distribution channels – such as linear TV, OTT services and via web and social media portals.

Besides fully fitting out two live studios, interconnected control rooms, various editing suites, ten dedicated voice-over booths and 16 additional voice-over stations with audio-visual equipment, the infrastructure also has eight production control rooms (PCRs) and an occasional channel playout room (OCPCR) with an interconnected audio control room (ACR) as well as two TX control rooms for controlling the four 24/7 main channels and ten occasional channels. Apart from ingest – with up to 60 EVS recording channels and the construction of an 84 sqm studio LED wall for analyses, graphics and game scenes – the new system landscape also has numerous technological innovations which, in this shape and size, are so far unique in Sky’s live sports production. Features related to the IP backbone, the studio and graphic workflow for augmented reality and coverage during conference productions mark a new era in live production at Sky Deutschland.

“Together with Qvest Media, we have prepared and implemented a detailed plan for the entire infrastructure – starting with essential core systems and workflows through to general, technical equipment and implementation within the facilities. This customised solution has helped us to greatly facilitate everyday production,” says Alessandro Reitano, Vice President of Sports Production at Sky Deutschland.

One of the central and most important workflows at Sky is naturally live sports production and the accompanying enhancement of live broadcasts with additional information and on-air graphics. Therefore, Qvest Media analysed and defined the necessary specifications based on Sky’s requirements. In addition, various systems and applications from Vizrt are used in order to ensure a fast, comprehensive and robust studio workflow of the eight PCRs. Live signals – such as, in the case of Sky, for live football, tennis or Formula One broadcasts – are controlled through a touchscreen user interface of the Viz Mosart studio automation system. The applications Viz Pilot and Viz Opus also enable a comprehensive range of possible uses for graphics during live productions. Close integration with the remaining graphics systems and applications, such as Libero, Arena and Multichannel from Vizrt, also provide a high degree of automation for graphic-supported analysis rooms and on-air integration of graphic elements. Using augmented reality, Sky is also opening up a new dimension by integrating graphic virtual elements such as a “virtual window” for LED walls. The new technology uses tracked camera data to create perspective animations.

Due to future in-house productions and the increased amount of data this entails, Qvest Media convinced its customer to use an original media asset management system (MAM). All workflows are therefore based on the central MAM system, such as file-and-feed ingest, export functionalities, quality control and transcoding. In this case, the installation of XT and XS live production servers from EVS provides up to 60 ingest channels and 76 live signals for the required capacity to manage incoming and outgoing content. “In this development process, it was particularly important to take Sky Deutschland’s pre-existing infrastructure into consideration and integrate it into the new overarching concept,” says Markus Heinen, Head of Systems Integration at Qvest Media. “The choice in the area of media asset management therefore was in favour of a system by Vizrt, not least in order to connect this to the existing Avid infrastructure,” Heinen explains further.

An additional feature which Qvest Media developed together with Sky is the collaboration of production teams during live sports broadcasts. As a result, the Conference Area was created in an open area specifically designed for this purpose. This has more than 12 identically equipped production islands on which teams of three can each produce a live conference. This is particularly suitable for the production of sports events which take place simultaneously at several venues, such as the Bundesliga or UEFA Champions League. Live feeds from the various three-person teams are switched to the running conference programme via the master control room, according to demand. In addition to the conference in the main programme, the viewer is offered a choice of up to ten further sports meetings via the occasional channels as events-based broadcast channels through the use of an Occasional Channel Playout Room (OCPCR). Besides the ten occasional channels, Sky also has four 24/7 main channels, namely Sky Sport 1 HD, Sky Sport 2 HD, Sky Sport Bundesliga 1 HD and Sky Sport Austria HD. The Imagine Playout Server is used for the four main channels and is controlled using Imagine ADC Automation.

On a technological level, the use of a real-time network based on a decentralised router for more than 1,250 Riedel MediorNet sources and sinks is also particularly remarkable. This is controlled by means of a VSM broadcast control system from Lawo. The fibre-based IP backbone has almost 150 individual router nodes and is so far globally unique in this configuration level. Consequently, Sky has a high degree of flexibility and redundancy possibilities for transporting audio and video data and for processing tasks such as embedding and de-embedding in its entire production network.

An exceptional feature of this project is the integration of audio-over-IP networks based on Dante with audio production by Lawo. Qvest Media therefore ensured that the manufacturer was open to integration of the Dante protocol while avoiding the use of its provided standard protocol.

The central IT backbone uses 10- and 40-Gbit Nexus 7710 core switches from Cisco, complemented by Nexus FEX2248TP-E and Catalyst 4948 access switches. The infrastructure also has a 735 TB central Isilon storage solution and virtualised servers based on HP BL460c blade servers and VMWare vSphere6 with a block storage based on an EMC Unity 300F for using virtual machines and databases. Content is archived to a Quantum LT07 library controlled by SGL Flashnet.

After around ten months of construction, an intensive staging process and several live test productions, the ultra-modern system infrastructure was put into operation on 1 July 2017 in close collaboration with Sky and Qvest Media.

Though his career in TV was going well in Buenos Aires, Pedro Sugasti realized the only way to progress further would be doing a stint abroad. The die was cast when he worked during the 2006 World Cup in Germany, and his plan firmed up three years ago when he moved to Munich for a job with a broadcaster.

Pedro says: “The first time I came to Germany was 10 years ago when I did TV graphics during the FIFA World Cup. I had the opportunity to stay in Munich for two months and I loved the city; at that point, almost unconsciously, I thought I’d come and live here.

“At the time I was doing well in Argentina, working for Clarín Group doing images for TN as well for football in the graphics department. I wanted to improve the way we see these things on TV in Argentina and felt I needed to gain some foreign experience, take on a bigger challenge. I decided I needed to make an about turn in my career with respect to tech projects. I sent my CV to Sky, the biggest network in Europe and it has all the rights to the Bundesliga. They offered me a good contract, so I came, I liked it – and I stayed.”

Working visa

Blessed with a contract from the broadcaster, Pedro says Germany heavily invests in its professionals. “I didn’t have any paperwork sorted out – and I don’t have European citizenship – but when they see someone they like, they go for it.

“Germany isn’t super rich with petroleum or natural resources like Argentina. Its biggest capital is human capital, so it’s important for them to bring in engineers, architects, all kinds of professionals to come and work for them, and they give you all the authorization to work here if you fit the bill. That’s a big difference in comparison with other countries such as the US, when it comes to paperwork and visas.”

As for the language, Pedro works mostly in English – though he did strike a deal to learn German with his employer. “After three years I still don’t have much German! It’s hard. I was told I wouldn’t need to speak the language perfectly although the channel had hoped I would learn. So I am studying, a little every day. But at work we manage everything in English, which is fine.”
Besides trying to get to grips with a new language, one major cultural difference Pedro has had to adapt to is the way Germans communicate. He says: “Argentines are very friendly, getting together for pizza or asado and there’s always a reason to do so. The Argentine integrates easily. But here, social groups are smaller, five or six friends, — a smaller nucleus — and they always get together with the same people. There’s integration in Germany, and then there’s integrating with Germans.”

Pedal power

The developer lives in Berg am Laim, the peaceful 14th district in Munich. “It’s residential and I have a good view so I can see the sky. From here, I can get anywhere in the city in 15 minutes, which is very comfortable. It’s got everything, I don’t need to take any transport to get anywhere; there’re six supermarkets close by, a few malls.

“I live on my own in a one-bedroom apartment and it’s hard to rent because lots of people are coming to live here and the law states owners can’t charge what they want. Often 50 people are after the same property. But it’s very comfy, my sister is visiting from Buenos Aires this week, my mum has been, and soon it will be Oktoberfest and all the beer gardens come to life.

“Munich has a very high quality of life. It’s a city with a lot of parks, woods and rivers, very ecological as they use solar panels and there’s a lot of consciousness toward the environment. You can get everywhere by bike. The city is impeccable. People are very receptive; there are lots of foreigners and I’ve never felt discriminated against – on the contrary, I’ve always been treated with the greatest of respect and always been accepted.”

As for free time, Pedro enjoys pedalling around the city, travelling, making the most of Munich’s central European location and dating Munich’s fräulein. He says: “Sometimes I play football, I go to the gym and go out on my bike a lot; we cycle to the river and have a barbecue, or go skiing in the mountains in winter; they are close by. Plus I’m studying German – still! – and I travel quite a lot. Munich is very close to lots of places so I’ll fly somewhere new for a few days.

“I go to Berlin regularly, I love it and that’s my favourite city here. Sometimes I need a bit of city and action so I go there, plus it’s near. There’s a great cultural and arts scene, with people between aged 25 and 40 doing lots of cool shows, events and exhibitions. I was in Nuremburg not long ago, and also Hamburg, and loved them both. And I visit Frankfurt regularly as a friend lives there.
“And I go out with a few girls – Munich has the highest number of single women so there’s quite a market! German women are much more direct about what they need than Argentines. They tell you what they want and if you’re not what they want then they tell you, they make it quite easy.”

Despite saying it can be hard to make friends with Germans, the porteño transplant has made some headway. He adds: “I do have some German friends – once they accept you, they value you. I don’t have a million friends but have got three or four with whom I go out regularly. When I go skiing, for example, I go with three Argentine friends who live in London, another who lives in Frankfurt, his partner who is Austrian, an English girl, a German friend of mine, plus a Swedish guy and his German girlfriend. That’s a typical weekend’s skiing.”

On whose time?

As for his most German characteristic it has been an improvement in timekeeping, for sure. He says: “I’m punctual and organized, though for Argentines I am very German. However, when I turn up five minutes late, the Germans look at me like, ‘WTF’. And I say, ‘well, it’s only five minutes!’ It’s been very good for me, though.

“In Argentina you live day to day, because of the climate or because we’re like the Italians going from one commotion to the next, trying to solve problems. Here, they give you the resources so you can live in a organized way. If you can’t live organized here, you can’t do it anywhere. Buses arrive promptly, people turn up at exactly 9am and you almost never queue up in the supermarket.”

Besides his friends and family, Pedro misses his favourite sport in all its formats and hanging out for the sake of it. He says: “Football, watching it and playing with my friends. Also food, restaurants and the gastronomic movement in Buenos Aires. And the idiosyncrasy of getting together with people and doing nothing! It’s nothing, but when you don’t do it, you miss it. Drinking mate. That’s basically doing nothing. Here, when you get together it’s with an objective. We gather to eat, go to the theatre or cinema. To do something, with a purpose. Which we also do in Buenos Aires but we also get together to do nothing. I miss friends dropping on a Tuesday evening to do something or nothing.”

Todo Noticias Rebranding

Todo Noticias is one of the main news channels in Argentina, based in Buenos Aires. It was founded in 1993 and is owned by the Grupo Clarín. In the year 2012 I had the chance to work on the rebranding of this News Channel together with two companies: Gizmo and Indicius.

Gizmo (www.gizmosite.tv) is a 3D production company based in Buenos Aires and owned by Andrea Bacigalupo and Emmanuel Verruno. They did works for Netflix, Ford, Kraft, Nestle, Beats, Honda, between many others. They are experts in 3D, animation, textures, modeling, rigging and advanced 3D technics. One of their main clients is the news channel Todo Noticias, and Gizmo did their graphics during years : rebranding, elections, special events and graphics for other shows of the tv channel.

Managed by Hernan Puente, Indicius (www.indicius.com) is a creative design company based also in Buenos Aires and main partner of Gizmo on some projects. They specialize on web and App development, UI design and branding. Their main job the Todo Noticias Rebranding project was: branding, the definition of the graphic elements inside the news, typographic work, finding the sutil path between what’s visually perfect and operational needed. The whole team did a hell of a job. I worked closely with two main designers: Nicolas Baumgartner and Luciano Laborde; their work was outstanding.

On the project, as broadcast expert, I was responsable for meeting the on-air workflows requirements of the news channel. Transforming the graphics into operable Viz Trio templates, On-Air Tickers, integration with iNews, Weather Data, etc. Also, together with Emiliano Enriquez I was responsable of transforming the static graphics done in Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Photoshop into animated graphics inside Viz Artist.

The process of the re-branding of Todo Noticias 2012 was the following :

Todo Noticias wanted to have a more clear look, glassy, crystalline, also they wanted to show different news at the same time.

A list of graphics, templates, wipes and all needed element was created. A PM managed the communications with the customer.

Graphic elements were created on Illustrator and Photoshop by the designers, this was exported as images and then approved by the customer.

The 3D team created outstanding intros, wipes, and channel IDs using tools as Cinema 4D, Maya, 3D Studio Max and Adobe After Effects.

The rest of the graphics, were transformed into Vizrt (www.vizrt.com) workflow. I worked with Emiliano first on creating all the graphics and animation inside Viz Artist. This were exported as video files so that the customer could see the final result, once the customer approved the look-and-feal, the graphics were ready to implemented into Viz Trio templates.

Before implementing this graphics into Viz Trio templates we had many meetings with the editorial teams, operators, directors, and all the staff of the News Channel to be able to understand what was their actual problems, how to fix them, and how they wanted to have the graphics implemented. Once we had all the information documented we started to create Viz Trio templates following the instructions.

We implemented the graphics using two Viz Engines as output and two Viz Trio operators. We also created some data integrations so that elements from iNews was imported to feed some of the graphic templates.

We tested all the graphics operation, key signals, HD output, HD output after satellite, SD output as well, 16:9, 4:3, etc. Todo Noticias give us access to a studio control so that we could do all the needed tests, together with very qualified staff that really help us out on finalizing all the tests.

After a couple months of tests, fixing bugs, trainings, new studio, new touch-screen, etc… The re-branding was ready and launched on December 2012. Was a complete success and with high rating and Trending Topic on Twitter as #TNSeRenueva

Sky HD Fan Zone Project

Sky HD FanZone is one project we developed on Sky Deutschland for Bundesliga, Champions League and F1. The main reason for this is that the viewer can see up to 9 matches at the same time in one single TV channel.

The Fan Zone Channel also allows the user to:

Chose which audio you want to hear using the Sky control remote

Select what match you want to see on full-screen

See different cameras of the F1

A ticker on the bottom shows information from all the league like results and standings

This was one of my first experiences working together with Germans in a cooperative environment. The professionalism on how the project was born, developed and placed was impressive. Almost all the different departments of Sky Deutschland was part of it, from product development, technology, creative services, broadcast operations, legal, and other areas, and one of the great things about this project was that innovation came when this synergy between all the areas from one company worked together.

On my role, I had to develop the graphic and data integration side using Vizrt platform together with a custom application. This custom application receives the information directly from the match ; when a goal hits and score changes the information comes directly using a REST feed and the graphics changes automatically, no manual operation involved.